85: Chapter 85 Stockpiling is risky

In the middle of the night, an exhausted Zhang Tao curled up in Zhao Jian's arms.

She must have fallen asleep.

Zhao Jian had his arm around her shoulders.

His fingers were unconsciously twirling her hair.

It wasn't that he couldn't sleep out of excitement.

It was just that his arm had gone numb, and he had been startled awake by a nightmare.

The time was approaching midnight again.

He wanted to wait for the intelligence to refresh before sleeping.

【Today's Intelligence (Red): A massive earthquake will occur in the Southeast Asian waters, triggering an unprecedented tsunami. Nearby rubber production areas will be affected, leading to severe production cuts. The price of rubber will double in the coming period.】

Rubber is an important manufacturing raw material and is quite significant in the automotive field.

However, Zhao Jian was not entirely clear on the price and purchasing channels.

Prices are easy to handle; they can be found online.

But purchasing channels for rubber are very difficult to find.

After all, the intelligence is a forecast for the entire day. No one knows when the earthquake and tsunami will occur.

He searched online.

Most of the content encouraged him to buy futures products.

But if the goods are gone, can futures still be sold?

Unlikely.

I've never heard of such a good deal.

Moreover, the tsunami has a wide impact, and it's hard to guarantee that insurance companies won't go under as well.

There wouldn't even be accidental compensation.

The only thing he, as an ordinary person, can do is to acquire the rubber that has already arrived in the market.

There should be more at the ports.

With no time to hesitate, he immediately searched for rubber with transaction addresses at nearby ports on the bulk trading platform.

And he actually found some.

It's just that the situation is slightly complicated.

"Two 60,000-ton rubber transport cargo ships have been drifting at sea near the coastal port for seven days. The price isn't expensive, only 14,000 yuan per ton."

It's about the same as the current market price.

But the reason they are drifting at sea is that these two ships did not deliver the goods on time as stipulated.

The contract they signed stated that they would arrive in ten days.

To transport other goods, these two ships were trying to earn two payments in one trip.

They departed early.

But unfortunately, the warehouses near the port were completely full.

This resulted in the rubber being unable to be unloaded.

Warehouses further away mean higher costs.

They wanted to complete the handover with Party A early to reduce losses, but were rejected by Party A on the grounds that it did not match the time stipulated in the contract.

Of course, they also privately hinted that if the price could be lowered by a few thousand, it could be discussed.

But if they lowered it by a few thousand, they would lose money.

The negotiations between the two sides ended unhappily.

Zhao Jian didn't care about the conflicts of interest involved.

The only problem is that the rubber seller is likely afraid to sell these two ships of rubber to him.

After all, if they can't produce the goods in ten days, the breach of contract penalty could bankrupt them.

And since the Southeast Asian supply source is affected by the tsunami, the other party is even less likely to take such a risk.

Zhao Jian could only hope for luck.

He left a message on their email, expressing his intention to buy.

The two ships of rubber total 40,000 tons.

The total price is close to 600 million.

This kind of transaction cannot be finalized with a single email.

He also couldn't come up with that much money.

But he didn't need to take it all on himself.

If he pooled money from relatives and friends, and took out some loans from the bank, it shouldn't be a big problem to secure one of the ships.

Fortunately, he hadn't picked up the sports car yet; he had only paid the deposit.

Most of the money was still in his hands.

In his sleepy state, his phone received an email.

But Zhao Jian had already closed his eyes and drifted into dreamland.

When he woke up again, his arms were empty.

There was the sound of chopping vegetables in the kitchen.

Zhang Tao was making breakfast.

Since graduation, he had rarely had a hot breakfast.

Of course, he rarely ate it before graduation either.

Not long after, the kitchen door opened.

The morning meal was relatively light, with four dishes: two vegetable and two meat.

"I didn't bring eggs, and the remaining vegetables aren't suitable for soup. I'll bring more next time."

Zhang Tao set the bowls and chopsticks for Zhao Jian.

At this moment, he felt that he was already living a life of being pampered, where food was brought to him.

However, there were things to do during the day, so there wasn't much time for intimacy.

He quickly shoveled the food into his mouth.

"Slow down, it's not good for your stomach."

Seeing him wolfing down the food, Zhang Tao felt a little secretly happy.

After all, this meant that the food she cooked was delicious.

But at the same time, she was worried that Zhao Jian would get indigestion from eating like that.

"It's fine, I love it."

He finished eating quickly.

It was time for work, so Zhang Tao left first.

Zhao Jian washed the dishes clean before heading out.

He opened his phone and checked the email while going downstairs.

The rubber seller had replied long ago.

The content sent by the other party was very brief: Sell!

And there was no need to worry about breach of contract, because their second batch of 40,000 tons of rubber had already departed and would arrive at the port in 9 days.

It could be used to complete the transaction.

In this way, the two ships of goods that arrived first became free commodities.

As long as there is money, anyone can take them.

Zhao Jian's problem now is that he has no money.

He only has over ten million on hand. Even if he mortgaged all his belongings, he could at most scrape together fifteen million. It's too far from 600 million.

Among the people he knows in Xiong City, only two people can afford to invest.

One is President Li, and the other is the Shop Owner of the Mingyue Antique Shop.

But the possibility of these two people investing is not high.

The former had his banquet disrupted by him, so he probably doesn't like him.

The latter is only knowledgeable in the antique industry, and no one likes to invest their money in an industry they don't understand.

So, besides trying to get these two people to invest together, he also needs other candidates in case they refuse.

Most enterprises in Xiong City are micro and small enterprises.

Even if there are a few giants, they are in manufacturing.

It's not easy to get them to invest money.

However, there might be one company that would be interested in rubber.

That is Linwan Automobile.

As a car company, even if buying it doesn't make money, they can use it themselves, right?

Zhao Jian went to the Mingyue Antique Shop first.

The Shop Owner welcomed him as usual.

It's just that in the past, Zhao Jian would always bring treasures. Even if he didn't bring any, he would inquire about related market trends.

This time, he came specifically to discuss the acquisition of rubber.

For a moment, he didn't know how to bring it up to the Shop Owner.

Seeing his hesitation, the Shop Owner asked proactively: "Is there any difficulty?"

Zhao Jian is his old customer, and he has made quite a lot of money during this period.

If it were borrowing a few thousand yuan, he wouldn't be unable to be generous.

"Shop Owner, do you pay attention to the futures market?"

Usually, after people have money, they won't just put it in the bank for a fixed deposit.

That way, it can't keep up with inflation, which is equivalent to losing money every day.

Some people put it into the stock market.

Some people buy funds.

Zhao Jian planned to ask around first.

"I haven't paid attention to it. Did you lose money buying that?"

The Shop Owner instinctively felt that Zhao Jian wanted to borrow money.

So his guess leaned towards the direction of Zhao Jian losing money.

"No, it's a chance to make a fortune. The price of rubber will rise sharply soon. But I can't handle too much by myself, so I wanted to ask, Big Brother, if you are interested."

Hearing that it was soliciting investment, the Shop Owner frowned.

He could take out a few thousand yuan without hesitation to lend.

Investment, is that something he can play with?

"Little Brother, if it's just investing a few tens of thousands of yuan to play around, that's no problem. But I really can't take out any more than that."

If a few tens of thousands of yuan go down the drain, I'll just consider myself unlucky.

Any more would hurt my foundations, and this antique shop of mine would have to be sold off to compensate.

He couldn't risk his ancestral business.